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THE FIRE-BRINGER. izmo, $i.io net. Post- 
age extra. 

THE MASQUE OF JUDGMENT. i2mo, $1.50. 

POEMS. i2mo, $1.25. 



THE FIRE-BRTNGER 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 



BY 



WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

tSitt Utititt^ibt ^tt^^, <ram6i;iti0e 

I 904 



COPYRIGHT 1904 BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published April, iqo4 



LlfeRAKY ut CONGRESS 
Two Cti)5i&s Received 

MAR 2% :904 

C«t>yrignt £ntry 
CLASS CU XXc. No. 

corv n 






And zvhen Zeus determined to destroy the men of 
the brazen age^ Deukalion, being forewarned by Pro- 
metheus^ built a boat^ and putting into it food and 
drink^ embarked with Pyrrha. Zeus sent a great 
rain from heaven^ so that all men were overwhelmed^ 
except a few who fled to the high places. Deukalion 
was driven upon the darkness of the waters until he 
catne to Parnassus ; and there^ when the rains had 
abated^ he landed and made sacrifice^ praying for men to 
repeople the earth. Then Deukalion and Pyrrha took 
stones^ and threw them over their heads ; those which 
Deukalion threw became men^ and those which Pyrrha 
threw became women. . . . Also Prometheus gave to 
them fire ^ bringing it secretly in a fennel stalk. When 
Zeus learned of this^ he commanded Hephastos to bind 
the body of Prometheus upon Mount Caucasus ; and 
for the theft of fire Prometheus suffered this punish- 
ment. Apollodorus. 



The Fire-Bringer is intended as the first mem- 
ber of a trilogy on the Promethean theme, of which 
The Masque of Judgment^ already published, is the 
second rhember; but the connection between the 
present poem and the one which follows it in the 
dramatic sequence is informal, and the action of 
each is complete in itself. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

Prometheus 

Pandora 

Deukalion 

Pyrrha 

iEoLUS ' 

Lykophon 

Alcyone 

Rhodope 

The Stone Men 

The Earth Women 

A Priest of Zeus 

Various persons, survivors of Deukalion's flood. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 



ACT I. 

J)arkness covers the scene. Faintly discernible^ a 
mountain slope., backed by low cliff's^ and beyond 
these the upper stretches of the mountain. In 
the cliffs a small cave^ and before the mouth of 
the cave a rude altar of earth. Deukalion and 
Pyrrha are seated against the cliff ; JEolus lies 
on his face at their feet. 

Deukalion. 
Thou hast slept long. 

Pyrrha. 

I saw a burning lamp 
That passed between the levret and the 

dove 
On Zeus's altar, and a smoke went up. 



2 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 

Dreams : we are old. The green heart and 
the sear 

He feeds with dreams ; having some pur- 
pose in it, 

Or else His idleness. 

Pyrrha. 

No lamp was here ? 
No fire, no light ? 

Deukalion. 
Some fire-sparks in the eyes 

Of dull bewildered beasts that came to 
gaze. 

And dully moved again into the mist. 

They have forgot their natures, even as 
we. 

And those who tremble yonder on the 
heights 

For fear the ebbing deep should mount again. 

Breathing this darkness have forgot our- 
selves. 

Our natures, and the motions of our souls. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 3 

Pyrrha. 
Was not the Titan here ? Seemed as he 

stood, 
Behind him dawn, and in his lifted hand — 

Deukalion, 
He came, in darkness. 

Pyrrha. 
What word should he bring ? 

Deukalion. 

I feigned to sleep. I had no heart for 
speech. 

Pyrrha. 
What did he, being with us ? 

Deukalion. 

Stood awhile 
Watching thy slumber ; touched the sleep- 
ing head 
Of ^olus ; gazed upward to the heights ; 



4 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Then vanished down the slope : and far be- 
low 
Pandora sang. 

Pyrrha. 

Again ? — 

Deukalion. 

I say below 
I heard her once, and once upon the peaks. 
A little after, thunder tore the sky. 
And *t was as if, far off, unearthly steeds 
And cloudy chariots plunged across the 

dark. 
Hush fell ; and, wailing like a broken bird, 
I heard her dropping down from rock to 

rock. 
Then for an endless season sat she here, 
Her head between her knees, and all her 

hair 
Spread like a night-pool in the autumn 

woods. 

Pyrrha. 
Since the loosed raven flew, nor came again-, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 5 

And since the black wind ceasing cast us 

here, 
How long should the time be ? 

Deukalion. 

A week, a month. 
Measureless years, some moments. Time 

is dead. 
Drowned in the waste of waters ; or it 

lies 
Somewhere abolished in the primal mud, 
Caught in the rings of Python, whom at 

dusk 
Of that last day, peering in terror forth 
Before we shut the windows of our boat. 
We heard hiss from the north and from the 

south. 
And from the east and west, and saw him 

lay 
His circles round the frothy rim of the 

world ; 
Or fled above the dark, Time softly there 
Laughs through the abyss of radiance with 

the gods. 



6 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. 

Think'st thou the gods laugh, now the col- 
ored world 

They sought to when the spring was on the 
hills, 

And had their stolen loves here, lies snuffed 
out, 

A reeking lamp ? 

Deukalion. 

Also therefore they laugh : 
And therefore also do we bow us down 
In fear and worship. 

Pyrrha. 
Ay, so. — What sayest thou ? 

Deukalion. 
I say supernal laughter and smooth days 
Fill up Heaven's golden room ! For that 

the earth 
Hath her dim sorrow and her shrouded 

face. 
Should the gods grieve ? 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 7 

Pyrrha. 
Husband, these breasts are dry 
That fed our many sons ; that head of thine 
Is hoar with majesty of years and rule; 
Much have I learned of thee and stored at 

heart 
Concerning gods and men, the elder age 
Of golden peace, the silver time between. 
When lust and strife began to gnaw the 

world, 
And these wild latter days. In the ark also, 
Crouching in darkness, and upon this mount 
Of weary darkness, hast thou held a torch 
To light my mind to patience of these woes 
Through understanding. Yet, behold, O 

king, 
I understand not I Wherefore hath great 

Zeus, 
Thy likeness in the heavens, bound like thee 
To shepherd his wide people, sent his floods 
To whelm them up, shut from the remnant 

clans 
Sun, moon, and stars; and for a final curse 
Drawn from the flints and dry boughs of the 

pine 



8 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

The seed of divine fire, — yea, from our 

blood. 
Yea, from the secret places of our frames 
Sucked up the fire of passion and of will, 
And left us here by the desolate black ebb 
To rot and crumble with the crumbling 

world ? 
Wherefore is this, O king ? 

Deukalion. 

Thyself hast said. 

Pyrrha. 

Yet know not. — Heavy of thought ! Make 
me to know. 

Deukalion. 
Because these latter days are full of pride 
And lust and wrangling ; because his skies 

were vexed 
With the might of rearing horses, and the 

wheels 
Of chariots, and the young men blowing 

horns 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 9 

Against his citadel ; because the south 

In all its chambers laughed a grievous 

red 
Out of the vineyards of its wantonness ; 
Because our fitful pulses, when they fell, 
Sang grief, division, terror, shame, and loss, 
Troubling that harmony which is the breath 
Of the gods' nostrils, yea the delicate tune 
To which they pace their souls, and act with 

joy 

Their several ministries. 

Pyrrha. 

Why then so long 
Do these flat slugs, that once were statured 

men. 
Cling to the oozy earth-rind He would 

cleanse 
For some new perfect race? Why, when thou 

heard'st 
Prometheus whisper thee his fearful news 
That evening by the farm-gate, did'st thou 

grant 
No sleep to slave or free, till from the hills 



lo THE FIRE-BRINGER 

The mighty pines were dragged, the hull- 
beams laid, 
The roof-tree raised, the doors and windows 

set. 
And through the muttering thunder all thy 

house 
Led in to safety ? When the holy fire, 
Brought by thine own hands from the hearth, 

went out. 
Why did'st thou bare thy white head to the 

storm 
To fetch another brand, and, finding none. 
Come forth with lamentation ? Why were 

seen. 
Through all thy mountain kingdom, runners 

stripped, 
And panted words, and flying to the peaks ? 
Thou answerest not; but leaning darkly 

down 
Over the head of little ^Eolus, 
Fingerest a tarnished lock from out the dust ! 
Speak, father ! Through this numbing gloom, 

this death, 
This veil of years, thy silence pierceth me. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER ii 

Deukalion. 
I try to feel again the thing I felt, 
But cannot, so the sinews of my soul 
Are loosened. Yet 't was for this radiant 

head 
That all was done defiantly toward God. 
His father Hellen and our other sons 
Were wandering, or had poured their life- 
blood out 
In obscure battle. This alone was left. 
This little flower of Greece, for whom I 

dreamed 
Kingdoms and glories, plaudits, trophies, 

palms. 
And sound of deathless lyres across the 

world. 
For his sake, fumbling in the gloom I built 
This altar, and have groped about the rocks 
For live thing worthy sacrifice •, have lain 
In bush and hollow till some dreaming 

bird 
Or sleep-besotted beast fell to my hands. 
And rent the same, and offered it with groans 
Upon the smokeless altar. 



12 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. 

Once He heard, 
Thou knowest. 

Deukalion. 
I know. We will not think thereon ! 

Pyrrha. 

The unwrought shapes, the unmoulded at- 
titudes ! 
The tongues of earth, the stony craving eyes ! 

Deukalion. 

Unto the husband was the wife's desire 
No longer, nor the husband's to the wife. 
The young maid lay undreamed on by the 

boy. 
The little life that was, was sinking fast 
Or sunk beyond recall. God's doubtful voice 
Out of the wind of the oak was fair to hear. 
Seeming to promise store of goodly men. 
And women vessels for the flowing life 
To enter and be spilled not. There was hope. 
Prometheus said not nay. Beside the verge 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 13 

Of the spent flood did we not see him stoop, 
Kneading the clay in with the roiled foam, 
Breathing and breathing with his fiery breath. 
Then cry upon his work, and scattering it 
Rise up in haste and wrath ? Yet here was 
hope ! 

Pyrrha. 

Yea, as I flung the clods, and stooped and 

flung, 
I dared not look behind, for hope ; and thou. 
Stooping and flinging the allotted stones. 
Seemed clothed in prime of years, foreseeing 

earth 
With a big breed replenished ; till on a sudden 
Terribly out of the gloom the Titan cried ; 
Then we, ceasing, beheld, and fled in fear. 

Deukalion. 

Would they might sit as now, removed apart, 
Brooding upon the ground ; nor come again 
With vague slow motion up the shrouded 

slope. 
Fining the mist with formless utterance. 



14 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

As craving to be born ! My men of stone 
In dreams appal me with their Hfted hands 
Of threat and suppHcation, and by thee 
Stand the earth-women pleading. 

Pyrrha. 

Ere I slept 
I was anhungered. Searching for sweet roots 
I crawled and groped my way, till I was come 
Unto a brackish water cupped and held 
From that same sea whereof the gurge but 

then 
Lessened its roar far down the cragged dark. 
There by the pool they sat, with faces lift 
And brows of harsh attention ; in their midst 
Pandora bowed, and sang a doubtful song. 
Its meaning faint or none, but mingled up 
Of all that nests and housekeeps in the heart. 
Or puts out in lone passion toward the vast 
And cannot choose but go. 

Deukalion. 

In mockery sent. 
In mercy be she taken, or on the hills 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 15 

Drinking thisdarknessjwitherand be changed 
To such as we are ! 



Pyrrha. 

Thinkest thou that Zeus 
In anger made her thus ? 

Deukalion. 

'Twill be so. When she came 
Our minds were dim and fearful. 

Pyrrha. 

Very dim. 
And blurred with fearful dream ; but — By 

the boat 
We crouched, and hearkened if the water still 
Drew downward, or was crawling up again 
To seize us unaware ; the mist was full 
Of beasts and men in wretched fellowship ; 
Then suddenly a breath like morning blew ; 
I saw as 't were a shadowy sun and moon 
Go up the blinded sky ; far off yet near 
I heard Prometheus speaking, and her voice 
In low and happy answer. 



i6 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 

He would catch 
The hurled thunder-bolt, and forge from it 
A reaper's hook ; the vials of white wrath 
He spills to make a wine-cup for a feast ; 
Curses he knows not from the gifts of love ; 
And in the shadow of this death, even here, 
As low as from her pitch of pride earth 's 

fallen. 
He will be plotting that whereby to climb 
And lift us high above the peaks of God 
One dizzy instant, ere we fall indeed 
And he with us forever ! 

Pandora (sings, below). 

Along the earth and up the sky 
'The Fowler spreads his net : 

O soul, what pinions wild and shy 
Are on thy shoulders set ? 

What wings of longing undeterred 

Are native to thee, spirit bird? 

Pyrrha. 

Hearken, is 't not 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 17 

Her song again ? Far down among the vales 
Did'st hear it ? Faint and far, but — 
Hearken still ! 

Pandora (sings). 

What sky is thine behind the sky. 

For refuge and for ecstasy ? 

Of all thy heavens of clear delight 

Why is each heaven twain, 

O soul I that when the lure is cast 

Before thy heedless flight , 

And thou art snared and taken fast 

Within one sky of light. 
Behold, the net is empty, the cast is vain. 
And from thy circling in the other sky the lyric 
laughters rain I 

Deukalion. 

Through the gorge there — a shadow — 

Pyrrha, look ! 
Over the torrent bed and up the slope 
Something comes on, in stature more than 

man, 
And swifter. 



i8 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. 

O swift-comer, it is thou ! 
None other, thou, wind-ranger, bringer-in ! 
Child, be awake ! Prometheus ! 

Prometheus (entering, lifts Pyrrha). 

Do not so ; 
These hands come poor ; these feet bring 
nothing back. 

Pyrrha. 

Thy hands come filled with thee, thy feet 

from thence 
Have brought thee hither; it is gifts 

enough. 

Deukalion. 
Is there no hope ? 

Pyrrha. 
Speak ! speak ! Through this dark cloud 
The eyes of Zeus's eagle cannot pierce 
Or any listener heed. Have we a hope? 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 19 

Prometheus. 
From earth and all this lower realm of air 
The fire is gone. 

Pyrrha, 
Thy searchings ! — Giveth ease 
If but to hear thy voice. 

Prometheus (seats himself beside the cliff). 

I clambered down 
Old earthquake-cloven rifts and monstrous 

chasms 
Where long ago the stripling Titans peered 
At play and dared not venture, — found me 

out 
Flint-stones so buried in disastrous rock 
I thought the Darkener sure had passed 

them by ; 
But not a spark lived in them. Past the walls 
Rhipean, and the Arimaspian caves, 
I sought the far hyperborean day. 
But not a banner of their rustling light 
Flapped through the sagging sky, nor did 

the Fates 



20 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Once fling their gleaming shuttles east or 

west. 
By Indian Nysa and the Edonian fount 
Of Haemus long I lurked, in hope to find 
Young Dionysus as he raced along 
And wrest his pine-torch from him, or to 

snare 
Some god-distracted dancing aegipan, 
And from his garland crush a wine of fire 
To light the passion of the world again 
And fill man's veins with music ; but there 

went 
A voice of sighing through the ghostly 

woods. 
And up the mountain pastures in the mist 
Desolate creatures sorrowed for the god. 
Across the quenched ^gean, where of old 
The shining islands sang their stasimon, 
Forever chorusing great hymns of light 
Round Delos, through the driving dark I 

steered 
To seek Hephaestos on his Lemnian mount ; 
But found him not. His porches were o'er- 

thrown, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 21 

His altar out, and round his faded peak 
The toiled Cyclops, bowing huge and dim, 
Uncouthly mourned. . . . 

(He starts up^ and ga-zes toward the mountain-top.^ 

Soon will the smouldering life 

Cease even to smoulder ! I must forth 

again. 
But where? But where? 
{Pause.) 

Deukalion. 

Where suppliants still must go, 
But with the act of suppliance, and the 

mind. 
Not stiff and rebel brows, not daring deeds 
Be of availment, but to clasp the knees 
And touch the beard of Zeus. Within his 

house 
Still lives the sacred fire. 'T is there to have, 
If one by sacrifice and rites full-brought 
Could find the way. 

Prometheus (laughs). 
'T is there to have ; thou sayst ! 
One thistledown of fortune to the good 



11 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

And 't had been ravished thence, an hour ago. 
To better uses ! 

Deukalion. 

'T was but so long since 
The thunder spake. Across the vault of 

heaven 
Plunged down the shadowy furnishment of 

war. 

Pyrrha. 

Thou *rt wounded ! Lo, this arm hangs 

helpless by ! — 
O, rash and overbold ! Thou — thou hast 

dared — 
The herm£e holding vigil at heaven's bound 
Have cried thy name out, and the shadows 

vast 
Of perished gods, beside the inmost hearth. 
Have spoken of thee, that the soul of Zeus 
Hath shook with dreams of evil to his 

house ! 

Deukalion. 

How might'st thou pass the terror of his 
ward. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 23 

Tread his serenest citadel, and come 
Not thunder-blasted hither, with slight 
wound ? 

Prometheus (flings himself again upon the 

ground). 
When each great cycle of Olympian years 
Rounds to its end, there comes upon the 

gods 
Mysterious compulsion. As a gem 
Borne from a lighted chamber Into dusk. 
Heaven of Its splendor disarrays itself. 
Hushes Its dyes, and all the whispering 

sphere 
Hangs like a moon of change. Knowing 

not why. 
Nor unto what, each brooding deity 
Wends to the sacred old Uranlan field, 
Where bloom old flowers, which. In the 

morn of time. 
Forgotten gods did garland for their hair. 
To celebrate some long-forgotten joy 
That then did pierce the heart of the young 

world. 



24 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Here gather they, with mute and doubtful 

looks 
At one another, waiting till She comes, 
Mnemosyne, mother of thought and tears. 
Remembrancer, and bringer out of death 
Burden of longing and sweet-fruited song. 
Then toward the upper windows of the 

stars, 
The roof and dome of things, the place su- 
preme 
Of speculation inward on the frame 
Of life create, and outward on the abyss 
That moans and welters in the wind of love. 
She leadeth up their shining theory. 
And there they stand and wonder on the 

time 
When they were not and when they shall 

not be. 
This was my moment ; for I knew 't was 

near, 
And laired away among the steep-up crags 

of day 
That bastion and shore-fast his pearl of 

power. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 25 

His white acropolis. Soft as light I passed 
The perilous gates that are acquainted 

forth. 
The walls of starry safety and alarm, 
The pillars and the awful roofs of song, 
The stairs and colonnades whose marble 

work 
Is spirit, and the joinings spirit also, — 
And from the well - brink of his central 

court 
Dipped vital fire of fire, flooding my vase, 
Glutting it arm-deep in the keen element. 
Then backward swifter than the osprey dips 
Down the green slide of the sea, till — Fool, 

O fool ! 
'T was in my hands ! 'T was next my bosom ! 

Fierce 
Sang the bright essence past my scorching 

cheek. 
Blown up and backward as I dropped and 

skimmed 
The glacier-drifts, cataracts, wild moraines. 
And walls of frightful plunge. Upon the 

shore 



i6 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Of this our night-bound wretched earth I 

paused, 
Lifted on high the triumph of my hands. 
And flung back words and laughter. As I 

dropped, 
The dogs of thunder chased me at the 

heels, 
A white tongue shook against me in the 

dark, 
And lo, my vase was rended in my hands. 
And all the precious substance that it held 
Spread, faded, and was gone, — was quenched, 

was gone ! 
(^Pause.) 

Deukalion (in a low voice). 
We cannot thank thee, though thy love be 

love. 
Great is thy heart; we cannot praise thy 
deed. 

Prometheus. 

It was not therefore done ! 

Pyrrha. 

For our poor praise. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 27 

For our poor love and praise ; albeit now 
The shouting of thy loud blood drowneth 
all! 

Deukalion (after a long silence). 
Prometheus, thou hast thought to be our 

friend. 
Our blood-kin, our indweller ; hast in- 
dued 
Vesture of our mortality and pain, — 
Wherefore if not for pride, for fiercest 

pride ? 
Thou hast found out wild pathways for our 

treading. 
Whispered us Nature's secrets, given to our 

hand 
The spirit of fire and all its restless works. 
Yea, blown aflame our all too eager blood 
Till earth went red and reeling like a 

torch 
When Dionysus calls under the moon. 
Look round thee, O storm-sower, what we 

reap 
Now in the season's fullness ! Is it good ? 



28 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pride was thy lesson, and earth learned so 

well 
That she is fallen more low than she was 

high. 

Prometheus. 
And shall be higher than that height she 

was, 
By all this depth she has fallen ! 

Deukalion. 

In that day 
Let Chronos lift his old abolished head 
From mid Lethean mallows, and dim- 

tongued 
Call to thy shadowy brothers where they 

dream. 
And leading up his faint forgetful host. 
Rive the great diadem from Zeus's brow. 
Then may thy stormy will at last be thine ; 
But as for now, even for thy earth's dear 

sake. 
Be humble, O be humble ! Bind thy hair 
With willow, and put on the iron ring, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 29 

That so, by walking fearfully at last, 

We bend Heaven from its anger. Else 

shall man 
Suffer such woes as now we muse not of, 
And thou such punishment as quails the 

heart 
To think on. 

Prometheus. 
Either now with violent hand 
We snatch salvation home, or here we sit 
Till Python, hissing softly up the dark, 
Dizzy our lapsed souls, and headlong down 
We drop into his jaws, which from the 

first — 
See, the boy wakes ! 

jEoIus (waking). 

Give me to eat and drink. 

Pyrrha. 
Water and roots I hoarded in the cave. 
I will go fetch them forth. 

(^She goes into the cave.) 



30 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 

Was 't well with thee 
In slumber, child ? 

I know not. I did sleep. 

Pyrrha (coming out). 
The roots are gnawed, and the sweet water 

spilled. 
Be patient, iEolus, I will seek thee more. 

Deukalion. 

Stay ; let me fetch them rather. Thou wilt fall. 

Or meet some fear. The sluggish serpents lie 

And will not move, though trodden, save to 

sting. 

Pyrrha, 
Thou knowest not where the roots are still to 
find. 

Deukalion (rising painfully). 
Together then. Ah, me! Where is thy hand? 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 31 

Pyrrha. 
Here, father. No, this way ! 

{They go slowly out ^feeling along the cliff.) 

Prometheus. 

Poor poisoned flower, 
Poor droop-head, down again ! 

(Stoops over Molus.) 

Woe for the house. 
Woe for the vineyard, woe for the orchard 

croft. 
The oil-tree and the place of standing corn ! 
Woe for the ships of venture ! Woe on Him 
Who sows and will not gather ; shame and woe 
Who sendeth forth and when the message 

comes 
Makes deaf and strange ! 

{He sinks down beside the cliffy 

O Mother Clymene, 
What of the song-thrush and the morning 

star. 
The moon deep-hung with increase down the 

dawn. 



32 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

The wet fields brightening fast, the hour thy 

pangs 
Came on thee for my sake ? What of the earth 
Thou loved'st so well and taught'st me well 

to love ? 
— Hears not ! 'T was long ago. 

{^His head falls upon his knees.^ 

One deep, deep hour ! 
To drop ten thousand fathoms softly dawn 
Below the lowest heaving of life's sea. 
Till memory, sentience, will, are all annulled. 
And the wild eyes of the must-be-answered 

Sphinx, 
Couchant at dusk upon the spirit's moor. 
Blocking at noon the highway of the soul. 
At morn and night a spectre in her gates, — 
For once, for one deep hour — 
i^He lifts his head slowly^ and peers into the darkness.^ 

Say who ye are 
That fill the night with deeper heaviness ! 
Break up your strangling circle and come out. 
More, more, and wretcheder ! A spirit pass 
Into some old and unachieved world. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 22 

A storm-fall in some wood of rooted souls ! 
But O, what spirit-piercing flower of life 
Blooms from the wasteful heap ? 

(^From among the crouching figures of the Stone Men 
and Earth IVomen^ Pandora's voice is heard.^ 

Pandora (sings). 
Of wounds and sore defeat 
I made my battle stay ; 
Winged sandals for my feet 
I wove of my delay ; 
Of weariness and fear, 
I made my shouting spear; 
Of loss, and doubt, and dread. 
And swift oncoming doom 
I made a helmet for my head 
And a floating plume. 
From the shutting mist of death. 
From the failure of the breath, 
I made a battle-horn to blow 
Across the vales of overthrow. 
O hearken, love, the battle-horn I 
T^he triumph clear, the silver scorn I 
O hearken where the echoes bring. 



34 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Down the grey disastrous morriy 
Laughter and rallying ! 

Prometheus. 

Thou ! Is it thou ? 

Pandora (comes from among the recumbent 
figures, holding something aloft). 

Where is Prometheus ? 

Prometheus. 

I am I, thou knowest. 

Pandora. 
I had a gift for him. Where is he gone ? 

Prometheus. 

Give me thy gift. 'T will bring Prometheus 

back 
To the high home and fortress of his soul, 
Where thou and he made gladness. 

{^She gives him a fennel stalk.') 

What is this ? 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 35 

Pandora. 
A hollow reed. I found it on the hills. 

Prometheus. 
Such used the mothers in the upland farms 
Fetch unpolluted fire in, once a year, 
To light their hearths anew; such would the 

girls 
Crown with fir-cone and smilax when they 

heard 
The frenzied pipe call in the midnight hills, 
And whisperings of anguish dimmed their 

blood. 

Pandora. 

Such had Prometheus, were he here again, 
Wreathed for his listening earth ; such had 

he filled 
With unpolluted fire, and kindled new 
The hearth-cheer of the world. 

Prometheus. 

Earth, sea, and air. 
The caverned clouds, the chambers of the 
storm, 



36 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Yea, the thrice perilous alps and crags of 

heaven 
Have watched the robber lurk, and laughed 

at him ! 
Do not thou mock him too ! 

Pandora. 

Him I will mock 
Who, being thirsty, climbs not to the spring, 
But meanly drinks at rillet and low pool. 
And thirsteth still the more. 

Prometheus. 

The spring ? The spring ? 
{^He hesitates^ then starts up with a wild gesture^ 

I could have done it once ! I could have 
done it ! 

Pandora (coming nearer). 
Stranger ! 

Prometheus. 
Hush, look ! They rise at me again ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 37 

"The Stone Men. 

When earth did heave as the sea, at the lift- 
ing up of the hills ^ 

One saidy " Te shall wake and he ; fear not^ 
ye shall have your wills." 

We waited patient and dumb ; and ere we 
thought to have heard^ 

One said to us " Stay ! " and " Come / " — a 
dim and a mumbled word. 

Mortise us into the wall again, or lift us up 
that we look therefrom ! 

'The Earth Women. 
'The night, the rain, and the dew from of old 

had lain with us, 
'The suns and winds were our lovers too, and 

our husbands bounteous : 
But lo, we were sick at heart when we leaned 

from the towers of the pine. 
We yearned and thirsted apart in the crimson 

globes of the vine. 
O tell us of them that hew the tree, bring us 

to them that drink the wine ! 
{They disappear.^ 



38 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Prometheus. 

Only a moment did they strain their brows 
In weary question at me, ere they turned 
And melted down into the blotting dark ! 
(i/(? starts slowly down the slope.^ 

Pandora. 
They go to find Prometheus. 

Prometheus. 

Of these stones 
To build my rumoring city, based deep 
On elemental silence ; in this earth 
To plant my cool vine and my shady tree 
Whose roots shall feed upon the central fire ! 

{^He turns to Pandora.^ 
Love ! 

Pandora. 

Where thou goest, I am ; there, even now 
I stand and cry thee to me. 

Prometheus (starts again down the slope). 

Yea, I come, 
I come; to find somewhere through the 
piled gloom 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 39 

A mountain path to unimaglned day. 

Build all this anger into walls of war 

Not dreamed of, dung and fatten with this 

death 
New fields of pleasant life, and make them 

teem 
Strange corn, miraculous wine ! 

Pandora (watching him disappear). 

Prometheus, lord ! 



ACT II. 

Scene as before. The space below the cliffs is de- 
serted ; on the slope above f voices of men and women 
are heard. 

First Voice. 
Peer farther down ! Hear'st thou the waters 

yet? 

Second Voice. 
With sea-slime and with lichen-tangled shells 
The rocks are strewn, and ocean-breathing 

things 
Gasp in the shallow pools ; but the main 

flood 
Is sunken further than the ear can hark. 
{They descend.^ 

A Young Man's Voice (above). 
A little strength, sister, a little strength ! 
Nay then, I die with thee. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 41 

An Old Man 5 Voice. 

My son, my son, 
Where art thou ? Answer me ! 

Another Voice. 

Peace. He is dead. 
I saw him sink upon the farther slope. 
Back to him, if thou wilt ; thou 'It come too 
late. 

Chorus of Men. 

The fallen must lie where they fell, 
For the dead cannot succor the dead. 

Chorus of Women. 
O when through the valleys of hell 
Shall the light of our Saviour be shed ? 

(They descend. Others appear from above.\ 

First Voice (above). 

Trust not the sea ! Look where the frothing 

lip 
Curls off the giant fang ! Back to the heights ! 

Second Voice. 
Nay, fallen are the waters. It is past. 



42 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Third Voice. 
The life we hurled from off the temple crag 
With supplications and with piercing song, 
Has made thus much appeasement. One 

more life 
Will roll away the ocean of main dark ; 
Unless we be forever doomed to lie 
As now, blind bulks of sleep, or hunger- 
bitten 
To creep the stagnant bottom of the world. 

Fourth Voice. 
This way, 't is said, Deukalion carried him. 
Follow on, yonder, where the cliff breaks 
down. 

(They descend ; others follow. From the side ^ below 
the cliff's^ a muttering group presses in ; in their 
midst are Deukalion and Pyrrha^ who shield Molus 
against the cliff. The space about the altar is filled 
with indistinct figures.) 

Deukalion. 

I am king, hear ye, am I not the king ? 
Higher than I is none. Take me ! Why 
him, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 43 

Little of strength and wisdom ? I am wise, 
My cunning brain is stronger than a host. 
Though this my spear-arm be a Httle fallen 
From when it led you out against the north, 
I am more terrible and mighty now, 
An old, much-seeing spirit. In my death 
The gods will taste a pleasure and be 

soothed. 
But from this child, this playmate — look 

ye here — 
This piece of summer's carelessness, this tuft 
Of hyssop planted by the wells of glee, — 
What honor should the dread gods have on 

him ? 
They shall have me, Deukalion — 

A Mans Voice. 

Bring not on us 
With wordy shifts, the last steep horror 

down ! 
That is no babe thy withered arm hides 

there. 
We know him ; we have seen. If he might 
live 



44 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

His name would fill the future, and make 

big 
The story of his folk. He is our best. 
Our soul of price, and him the gods demand. 
Together with the maid, whose father here — 
O how much more a kinglier will than 

thou ! — 

Deukalion. 
Where art thou, Lykophon ? Mine eyes 
are dim. 

Lykophon. 
Here by the altar. 

Deukalion. 
And thy child ? 

Lykophon. 

Here too. 

Deukalion. 

Thy heart is firm to do it ? Thou wilt live, 
And think on 't after ? Ay, remember that! 
Hast weighed that with the rest? 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 45 

Lykophon. 

He was my slave, 
Whose crazed old voice cried yonder of his 

son. 
Was it to win a remnant of dim days, 
A handful of poor mealtimes and to-beds, 
He offered him ? To watch some mornings 

rise. 
Some evenings fall, fringing with fearful 

light 
The cliff he hurled him from to the hungry 

sea? 
Am I a lesser than my bondman is ? 

Deukalion. 

Yea, ye will teach me, and I'll bear it 

tame ! 
I know what fits a king, what he must pay 
In peace of soul and heart's blood for his 

folk. 
King-drownling of an island of drowned 

dogs. 
Wolves, snakes, and field-rats, crept from 

out the flood 



46 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

For hunger and the hell-bred fog to rot ! 
Rot ye ! I '11 keep my own. 

Lykophon (to the crowd). 

Back, back, I say ! 
The gods despise enforced offerings. 
When the heart brings its dearest and its 

last 
Then only will they hear — if then, if 
then! 

Deukalion. 
Be this life taken, what is left ? O friends, 
O wretched children, lift your hearts and 

eyes, 
Look through the death-dark hither and be 

known 
On what you ask ; think on yourselves, on 

me. 
On them that keep the heights, and who 

lie strewn 
Along the downward path. See how the 

price 
Doth shame the purchase ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 47 

A Man s Voice. 
We have thought on these. 
And find they are our brothers and our 

friends, 
Our parents, children, wives ; and that they 
die. 

Lykophon. 

Not they alone. The past, the future dies. 

A Womaris Voice. 

Hark what he says ! He knows not, yet he 

says ! 
None of you know. I have cried unto you 
And told you of it, but you will not know ! 
You will not listen what I carry here 
Under my heart, and feed and shelter now. 
That then shall be the bread and wine of 

the world. 
The torch and sword and lyre, the water- 
brook. 
The lion-gate and wall of many towers. 
The marshaler of dances, — there, O there 
Beyond the shadow and the sorrow, far 
In God's new garden. His green virgin 
mount ! 



48 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Chorus of Women. 

Would, would we might be silent, for we 

know 
Though now He puts us by, 
Though now He heeds us not nor hearken- 

eth. 
The groping of our anguish up the sky 
Will wean and wear Him so 
That in the vexed sendings of His breath 
He will breathe out a deeper than the gloom 
Of our deep doom. 

And put in death a sting sharper than death. 
{Distant thunder.^ 

Chorus of Men. 
Seize them and stifle up their irking lips ! 
He grudgeth at us, but forgetteth where 
He felt our spreaded palms, and was aware 
Of fierce and tedious prayer. 
Yonder of us night darkens with His frown ; 
Far off, and all forgetfully He drips 
His drowsy anger down. 

(The thunder rolls nearer^ and terrific storm sweeps 
over the scene^. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 49 

A Womaris Voice. 

Ah, no. He smiteth us ! His lightning leaps 
From end to end of the world ! 

A Mans Voice. 

His thunder shakes 
The pillars of the dark. Lo, up above 
The roof of darkness ruins and lets in 
Thrice horrible night ! 

Another Voice. 

Alas, the wind, the wind ! 
The trampling and the bellowing herds of 

rain 
Loose on the mountain slopes ! Bow down ! 

Bow down ! 

Deukalion (gropes forward through the tem- 
pest and lifts ^olus upon the altar). 

Lord, stretch thy hand and take him ! He 
is thine. 

Lykophon. 
What criest thou, Deukalion ? 



50 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 

Take the child. 
The gods' dark will be done! I am content. 

{He falls.) 

Lykophon (bending over him). 
Deukalion ! 

Pyrrha. 
Husband ! Father ! Speak, look up ! 

Lykophon (rising). 
The king is down. Here in his mighty 

room 
I stand up over you ! Where is the priest 
Who serves the altar on God's mountain 

top? 

A Man's Voice. 
Yonder he crouches, and his sacred eyes 
Are set athwart ; he wanders in his wit. 

Lykophon. 
Prepare him for his ministry. . . . And 
thou. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 51 

Alcyone, sweet head ! Thou keepsake life 
Left me for memory, thou precious seal 
Stamped with her mystic love-sign unto me, 
I put her blessing on thee ; and do thou 
Kiss me, and put her blessing upon me 
For this I do. 

(^He lifts her upon the altar.') 
Weep not. — Room for the priest ! 
{The priest advances^ holding the sacrificial knife.) 

Pyrrha (flings herself before the altar). 

Hold off your hands, hold off! The king 

is fallen. 
And falling spake somewhat. But I, who 

drank 
Of his deep will, who ever was and am 
His heart's high furtherer, cry over him 
Ye shall not touch them yet ! Not yet ye 

shall ! 
Not till Prometheus comes or makes a 

sign ! 

Lykophon. 
Thou see'st the gray eternities of time 



52 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

That we have waited, till our minds are 

crazed 
With watching, and our all o'er-hearkened 

ears 
Hear silence roar and mutter like a sea ; 
And still he comes not, and no word comes 

past 
The crouching places and close lairs of 

death. 

A Maris Voice. 

Yet he will come : his haughty soul shall 

not 
Be hindered of its walk. 

Priest. 

Behind the wall 
A thief was taken, and his sons at dawn 
Said " Now he comes with purchase ; we 

will feast," — 
Even while the ravens on his glazing eyes 
Were feasted, and the master of the house 
Said, " I have judged him and forgotten 

him." 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 53 

Ye blind and credulous, ye whispering 

things ! 
Mutterers, collusioners ! What wait we 

for? 

Chorus of Women. 
O that our spirits might not thus 
Afflict us, making pictures on the dark, 
And giving silence tongues to cry against 

us ! 
For though we shut our ears and will not 

hark. 
And blind our eyes from seeing, he is 

there ; 
The dust of heavenly battle dims his hair. 
The large gods close about him, he is down ; 
Now thrice three times about the shining 

town 
The thunder-winged chariot drags his corse; 
And now they bind him to the winged 

horse 
With chains of burning light ; the portent 

rears away 
O'er prairies of insufferable day ! 



54 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Chorus of Men. 
'Twixt Berenice's tangled hair 
And that blue region of the morning where 
The bright wind-shaken Lyre 
Sheds down the dawn its spilth of silver 

fire. 
We saw him stoop and run upon the air, 
Shielding from region gusts the stolen 

flame ; 
But from a steep cloud warping up the west 
A curse of lightning came. 
With tort-flung neck and clutched breast 
He fell, a ruined star ; 
And now the char 

Had quenched itself with hissing, in the sea. 
But lo, again his soul flamed gloriously ! 
The eagle tempest, gyring from its place, 
Seized him, and whirled. 
And hung him on the plunging prow of the 

world. 
To shed the anguish of his face 
Upon the reefs and shoals of space, 
To lighten with the splendor of his pain 
Earth's pathway through the main. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 55 

Though death was all her freightage, and 

the breath 
That swelled her sails was death. 

A Man s Voice. 

He will not come. I heard an old bard once 
Sing of him, saying Titan lapetos 
Fathered him not ; his mother Clymene, 
Wandering in the morning of the world. 
Suffered human embraces. 'T will be so. 
For he is human-minded, and too slight 
To wrest from God's hand the withholden 

fire. 

Second Voice. 

Hearken ! One sings upon the upper slopes. 

T^hird Voice. 
'Tis she, the other gift in mockery sent, 

Pandora. 

Fourth Voice, 

Haunting, cruel to the heart. 
She opens sunny doors, which ere we look 
Are closed foreverlasting, and their place 
Not to be guessed. 



56 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Fifth Voice. 

This was another thing 
Prometheus did. Whom the gods sent in 

wrath 
To make us know how wondrous was the life 
That inchmeal they took from us, even her 
He chose out for his love, and even here 
He made his bridals. 

Sixth Voice. 

Some say 't is not so, 
But she Pandora is a child he had 
Before the sea rose and the night came down, 
And others say his sister, whom he fetched 
From Hades, where she was with Clymene, 
Being childed late, after the Titans fell. 

A Woman s Voice. 
Hush, hark, the pouring music ! Never yet 
The pools below the waterfalls, thy pools, 
Thy dark pools, O my heart — ! 

A Young Man^s Voice. 

Delirious breast ! 
She jetteth gladness as a sacred bird. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 57 

That o'er the springtime waves, at large of 

dawn, 
Off Delos, to the wakening Cyclades 
Declares Apollo. 

A GirPs Voice. 

Once more, once more, O sisters, ere we die 

I will lift up my cry 

To Him who loved us though He puts us 

by. 

For yonder singer with the golden mouth 
Hath fallen upon us privily as falls 
The still spring out of the south 
On the shut passes and locked mountain 

walls. 
And suddenly from out my frozen heart 
Dark buds of sorrow start. 
Freshets of thought through my faint being 

roll. 
And dim remembrance gropes and travails 

in my soul. 

I will cry on Him piercingly 

By reason of my girlhood how it ailed. 

Then when I seemed 



58 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Unto myself a thing myself had dreamed, 
And for whose sake the visionary Spring 
High in the chilly meadows where she stood 
With lips of passionate listening 
In the sea-wind above the moaning wood, 
Scattered her discrowned hair, and bowed 

herself, and wailed. 
And then, a little after, came a day 
That loosed my bands of ailing all away ; 
For somewhere in the wilds a spirit spoke. 
The ghostly earth went past me like a stream. 
And swooning suddenly aloft I woke 
To an intenser dream. 
Would mine were that same spirit's tongue 

to tell 
The joy that then befell, — 
Rather befell not, but refrained. 
Lurked and withdrew. 
And was an inner freshness in the dew, 
A look inscrutable the stars put on, 
A fount of secret color in the dawn. 
After day-fall a daylight that remained 
Brighter than what was gone. 
O sisters, kiss the numbing death away 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 59 

From off my heavy lips, and let me say 
How fair my summoned spirit blossomed in 

its clay. 
When the girls sang of me that I was his 
Whose voice I heard treading the wilderness; 
And I had followed him as the homing dove 
That furtive way he went, 
Till now he had brought me up into his tent. 
Where flutes made mention of love, and wild 

throats said 
With wine and honey of love were his tables 

spread. 
Also the banner over us was love ! 

A Woman s Voice. 

Look, Pandora comes ! 
See, there above the cliff she glimmers down, 
And darker shapes come with her. 

A Man's Voice. 

The big seed 
Deukalion and Pyrrha sowed in hope 
To reap in terror ; the scarce-featured sons 
Of stone, and daughters of the sullen glebe. 



6o THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion (waking). 
Pyrrha ! Where art thou ? 

Pyrrha. 

'T is my face thou feelest, 
Thy groping hands are even on me, father. 

Deukalion. 
Who are these ? How is *t with us ? O 

wherefore 
Gaze ye all thus aloft? 

Pyrrha. 

Pandora comes. 

Deukalion. 

I see naught. Since a little while mine eyes 
And brain are faded. Help mine eyes to 
see. 

Pyrrha. 

She pauses on the margin of the cliff. 
About her are the shapes of them who rose 
Behind us, when we sowed the heavy seed. 
Her either hand is on a kneeling head, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 6i 

Female and male ; her forehead more than 

theirs 
Is lifted up in yearning, and her face 
Is like the lyrist's when at first he waits 
And drifts his heart up through the cloudy 

strings. 

A Man s Voice. 

Take heed there to the lad, where he hath 

risen 
His height upon the altar ! And the maid 
Is risen. Look to them ! 

Pyrrha. 

Children ! iEolus ! 
What Is 't with you ? What search ye in 

the heavens? 
O, to what high thing do your spirits strain 
And your hands tremble up ? 

jEoIus and Alcyone (looking and pointing 
upward). 

The stars ! The stars ! 
{^Pause.^ 



62 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 
Why hath so deep a hush fallen on the 

night ? 
I heard a whispering cry. What whisper 
they ? 

Pyrrha. 

^olus pointed — whispering of the stars. 

JEolus. 
iEolus — stars. Pyrrha ! 

Pyrrha. 

With thee ! 
Deukalion. 

Spakest thou 
Of stars ? 

Pyrrha. 

Ay, so he whispered ! 

Deukalion. 

Thou — and thou ? 

Pyrrha. 
Nothing, nothing. My soul was as a lake 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 6^ 

Spread out in utter darkness; to its depth 
There pierced a silvery trembling — 

Deukalion. 

Look again. 
Wife, cease to pray ! Look out again ! 

Pyrrha. 

The dark 
Gathers and flees, and the wide roof of night 
Leans in as it would break ; the mountain- 
ous gloom 
Unmoors, and streameth on us like a sea. 
O Earth, lift up thy gates ! It is the stars ! 
It is the stars ! It is the ancient stars ! 
It is the young and everlasting stars ! 

Pandora (sings). 
Because one creature of His breath 
Sang loud into the face of deaths 
Because one child of His despair 
Could strangely hope and wildly dare., 
'The Spirit comes to the Bride again. 
And breathes at her door the name of the 
child ; 



64 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

" I'his is the son that ye bore me I When 
Shall we kiss, and be reconciled? " 

Furtive, dumb, in the tardy stone. 

With growings sweet in the patient sod. 

In the roots of the pine, in the crumbled 

cone. 
With cries of haste in the willow-rod, — 
By pools where the hyla swells his throat 
And the partridge drums to his crouching mate. 
Where the moorland stag and the mountain 

goat 
Strictly seek to the ones that wait, — 
In seas aswing on the coral bar. 
In feasting depths of the evening star. 
In the dust where the mourner bows his head. 
In the blood of the living, the bones of the 

dead, — 
Wounded with love in breast and side, 
'The Spirit goes in to the Bride I 

Pyrrha. 

The veil that hid the holy sky is rent ; 
The vapors ravel down ; and a bright wind 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 65 

Blows, that the planets and the shoaled 

worlds 
Stoop from their dance, and wheel and shout 

again, 
Scattering influence as a maenad shakes 
Pine sparks and moon-dew from her whirl- 
ing hair. 
And hark, below, the many-voiced earth, 
The chanting of the old religious trees. 
Rustle of far-off waters, woven sounds 
Of small and multitudinous lives awake. 
Peopling the grasses and the pools with joy, 
Uttering their meaning to the mystic night ! 

A Maris Voice. 
Within my soul there is a rushing down 
Like darkness, and my being, as a heaven, 
Soareth apparent, as a heaven with stars. 
A heaven hung with stars my spirit is, 
And all among them walks a wind of will. 
Uttering life, and purpose, and desire ! 

A Woman's Voice. 
O for the dreaming herbs, the whispering 
trees. 



d^ THE FIRE-BRINGER 

And rustling, far-off waters of my heart ! 
O for the mystic night risen within me ! 
The multitudinous life, the busy sounds 
Of woven love, the hushed and pouring love. 
The pouring love and stillness of the night! 

Deukalion. 
Wife, wife, what falleth since ? 

Pyrrha. 

A stir of joy 

Troubles the fields of air 'twixt star and star. 

Across the quivering acres, by and large. 

An unimaginable Reaper goes. 

And where he walks the heavens are seldom- 
sown; 

Till o'er wan earth the spreaded heavens are 
bare. 

Save for one mighty star that gathers light 

And stands like a flushed singer telling glory. 

Now he, now even he has no dominion, 

For he has looked behind him to the moun- 
tains, 

O, he has looked up to the lovely mountains 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 67 

Of the unimagined morning, and has heark- 
ened 
The pouring of the chill, eternal urns ! 
Over the solemn world gray habitation 
Wonders at habitation. Room by room, 
The heavens tremble and put on delight. 
Ignorant one to another why it is 
The festal wish compels them. They are 

brightened 
Under the feet of many breathless spirits, 
Who, lifting up their hands by the springs 

of ocean. 
Cried " Psan ! " and " O, Hymen ! " As a 

stream 
Silvereth in a wind-start, heaven is brightened 
Under the speed and striving of those spir- 
its, — 
Who now, even now dissolve, and leave be- 
hind them 
Only their gladness and their speed ; for now 
Through all its height and frame of living 

light. 
Through all its clear creation, breathing 
depths 



68 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

And fleeing distances, the sacred sky 
Pulses and is astonished like a heart ; 
It looketh inward and bethinks itself, 
Outward, and putteth all its question by. 
To shine and soar and sing and be at one ! — 
Nearhand the slopes drink light, and far 

about 
Among the mountain places, headlands,cliffs, 
Lone peaks, and brotherhoods of battlement 
Shout, having apprehended. — Paler grow 
The gulfs of shadowy air that brim the vales ; 
As ocean bateth in her thousand firths. 
The gray and silver air draws down the land. 
The little trees that climb among the rocks 
As high as they can live, pierce with their 

spires 
The shoaling mist, swim softly into light. 
And stand apparent, shapely, every one 
A dream of divine life, a miracle. 
Chasms are cloven in the violet 
And amethystine waters of the air ; 
Forests and winding rivers of the plain 
Are given and withdrawn ; a moment since 
I saw, I thought I saw a strength of hill 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 6^ 

Uplifted far below us, built upon 
With what was once a lordly place of souls, 
A carved and marble place of puissant souls, 
Builded to such strong music that the sea 
Had hardly heaved one lintel from its post. 
Or marred one face of all the sculptured men. 

Or shaken from his seat one musing god. 

Again the air is cloven ; I have seen 
Fane-crowned promontories, curving sweeps 
Of silver shore, islands, and straits, and bays ; 
And bright beyond,the myriad ocean stream. 
And O, beyond — beyond ! — O shelter me ! 
Bow down ! Cover your eyes ! 

Confused Voices. 

Terrible wings ! — 
Light awfuller than darkness or the sea ! — 
O spirit of sharp flame amid the burning ! 

A Boy's Voice. 
My hands are on my eyelids, and my knees 
Shelter my face. O mother, lay thy breast 
About me, and shut out the killing light. 
Before my eyeballs and my brain be dead ! 



70 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion (on his knees, with out- 
stretched hands). 
Of late mine eyes were quenched, and now I 
see. 

Pyrrha. 

Thine eyelids are not open, but thy face 
Searcheth into the radiance. Father, cease ! 
Look not upon it with thy soul. Thy face 
Is terrible with beauty in the light. 
I cannot look upon thy seeing face. 
Take not the mortal glory on thy face ! 
Bow down — O let me shield thy sightless 
eyes ! 

Deukalion. 

Burning is laid unto the roots of the world ; 
The deep spouts conflagration from her 

springs ; 
And fire feeds on the air that feeds the stars. 
Out of the sea has burst, from rended deeps 
Of the unthought-on rearward has leapt out 
The appearance of the glory of the sun. 
Filling the one side of the roaring world 
With creatures and with branch-work of pale 

fire ; 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 71 

And through the woods of fire the beasts of 

fire, 
The birds and serpents and the naked souls 
Flee, that their fleeing startles the slow dead 
Through all their patient kingdoms, and the 

gods 
In their faint spheres are flown and passion- 
ate. 

A Man s Voice. 

My soul is among lions. God, my God, 
Thou see'st my quivering spirit what it is ! 
O lay not life upon it ! We not knew 
The thing we asked for. We had all forgot 
How cruel was thy splendor in the house 
Of sense, how awful in the house of thought. 
How far unbearable in the wild house 
That thou hast cast and builded for the heart ! 

Lykophon. 
Deukalion, speak again ! 

Pyrrha. 

If yet thy flesh 
Endure to look upon it, speak again. 



72 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion. 
His soul is strong and will deliver him ! 
The feature of his anguish and his joy 
Makes dim the light adjacent, and his 

soul 
Is bright to overcome. He treads the glory 
Over against the roaring, hitherward. 
Seeing the taper of small excellent light 
He lifteth in his hand, the night rolls on 
Before him, and day follows after him. 
The hours, the months, the seasons, and the 

times 
Acknowledge him ; the waste calls to the 

sown ; 
The islands and hoar places of the sea 
Sing, as the chief of them that are taught 

praises. 
About his torch shineth a dust of souls. 
Daughters and sons, who fly into the light 
With trembling, and emerge with prophecy ; 
And round about goeth a wind of tongues, 
A wind as of the travailing of the na- 
tions ; 
Vast sorrow, and the cry of desperate lives 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 73 

To God, and God to them crying or answer- 
ing- — 

Child ! iEolus ! My child. Where is my 
child ? 

Pyrrha. 

I cannot see ; the A2i-LT\Q of his coming 
Makes blind the place. Here, father, in thy 

knees ! 
Feel, 't is the darling head ! Wild comer, 

when? 
Hasten, have pity, we are nothing strong ! 
Father, how is 't with thee ? Why bow'st 

thou down ? 
Thy hand is cold, thy lips are very cold. — 
O gone, O gone, even at the entering-in ! 

A Voice. 
Who are these coming down, that they are 

mighty 
To walk with foreheads forward to the light. 
Singing the mortal radiance to its face ? 

A Voice. 
It is Pandora and the unborn men, 



74 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Deukalion's seed. She doth it of her power. 
They of their weakness. 

Pandora (sings, invisible in the light). 
Te who from the stone and clay 
Unto godhood grope your way^ 
Hastening up the morning see 
Tonder One in trinity ! 

The Earth Women. 
Save uSy flaming "Three ! 

Pandora. 
Dionysus hath the wine^ 
Eros hath the rose divine^ 
Lord Apollo hath the lyre : 
"Three and one is the soul's desire. 

The Stone Men. 
Save USy sons of fire I 

A Woman s Voice. 

Listen, they have passed. 
They go with singing forward down the 
light. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 75 

Prometheus (below, invisible). 
Thou gavest me the vessel ; it is filled. 

Pandora. 
I am the vessel, and with thee 't is filled. 
{Pause.) 

Lykophon (whispers). 
Pyrrha ! 

Pyrrha. 
Who whispers me ? 

Lykophon. 

Is he not come ? 
Is he not busied by the altar there ? 

Pyrrha. 
Nay — Lo, the terrible taper ! It is he ! 
I see him not ; my spirit seeth him ; 
My heart acheth upon him busied there. 
— Deukalion, O Deukalion ! 

Prometheus (from the altar). 

Pyrrha ! Pyrrha ! 



76 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. > 

Prometheus, saviour ! 

Prometheus. 

Lykophon ! 

Lykophon. 

Lo, me ! 
Prometheus. 
Bring me your children hither. 

Pyrrha and Lykophon (groping forward with 
iEolus and Alcyone). 

Here are they ! 

Prometheus. 

Unto this twain, man-child and woman- 
child, 

I give the passion of this element; 

This seed of longing, substance of this 
love; 

This power, this purity, this annihilation. 

Let their hands light the altar of the world. 

'T is yours forever. I have brought it home ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 77 

(The radiant mist fades ; it is clear day ^flooded with 
morning sunlight. The children apply the burn- 
ing reed to the fuel., and fire flames high upon the 
altar. Pandora^ voice is heard faintly ., far below.\ 

Pandora. 

Too far^ too far, though hidden in thine arms ; 

Too darkly far, though lips on lips are laid I 

Love, love, I am afraid; 

I know not where to find thee in these storms 

That dashed thy changed breast my breast 
upon. 

Here in the estranging dawn. 

Unsteadfast ! who didst call and hast not 
stayed. 

Tryst-breaker I I have heard 

Thy voice in the green wood, and not de- 
ferred : — 

O fold me closer, fugitive one, and say where 
thou art gone I 

Nay, speak not, strive not, sorrow not at all! 
O, dim and gradual I — 
Beloved, my beloved, shall it be ? 



78 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Keep mCy keep me with thy kiss, 

Save me with thy deep embrace ; 

For down the gulfs of spirit space, 

The slow, the implacable winds, now unescap- 

ably 
Wheel us downward to our bliss. 
Whelm us, darken us — O lethal winds ! — 

down to our destined place. 
Swimming faitit , beneath, afar — 
O lover, let there be 

No haste, nor clamor of thy heart to see ! 
But I have seen, and I whisper thee 
How the rivers of peace apparent are. 
And the city of bridal peace 
Waits, and wavers, and hardly is. 
Fades, and is folded away from sight ; 
And now like a lily it openeth wistfully. 
Whispering through its courts of light 
" How long shall we be denied ? 
How long must the eastern gate stand wide. 
Ere these who are called shall enter in, and 

the bridegroom be with the bride ? " 



ACT III. 

An open rocky place higher in the mountains ; in the 
rock-wall at one side is a rough-hewn open tomb ; 
in the rear the stranded ark of Deukalion^ caught 
amid great rocks ^ is outlined against snow-peaks and 
against a vast sunset cloudy full of shifting light. 
The funeral train of Deukalion winds up the steep 
path from below. Lykophon and a company of grown 
men carry the bier^ beside which walk Pyrrha and 
/Eolus. 

Chorus of Old Men. 

In one same breath 

Uttering life and death, 

Whatso His mouth seems darkly to ordain 

The darkling signal of His hand makes vain, 

And like a heart confused He sayeth and 

gainsaith. 
With himself He wrestles thus 
Or gives this wrestling unto us. 
Whichever, it is well. 
O children, we are risen out of hell, 



8o THE FIRE-BRINGER 

And it is pleasant evening ! Daughters,sing ! 
Upon his way let soft and golden mirth 
Be spoken round the king, 
And unto heaven be told the sweetness of 
the earth. 

Chorus of Girls. 

How shall the thought of our hearts be 
said. 

Here, where this averted head 

Lonely walks by the lonely dead ? 

'T were better others sang. 

Not we, not we ! 

For when the mighty morning sprang 

Terrible in gladness from the sea. 

When, entering the high places of the air. 

Noontide unbelievably 

Possessed them, and lifted up his trophy 
there, — 

Yea, all the noon and all the afternoon. 

We could have put our secret by, we could 
have spoken 

Well before thee, O mourner, O heart- 
broken ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 8i 

But now, but now — Mother, mother. 
We have, seen one coming with thee up the 

steep ; 
His mild great wing we saw him keep 
Over thee like a, sheltering arm, 
And the shadow of one pinion fell across 
To shield the bosom of thy lord from harm ; 
We have seen him, the dark peace-giver, 

Thanatos ; — 
But O, we have seen also another. 
Winged like him, and dazzling dim. 
He came up out of the sun, yet he goeth 

not down therewith ; 
For, ever warmer, closer, as the evening fall- 

eth pale. 
His arm is over our necks, and his breath 
Searches whispering under our hair ; and his 

burning whisper saith 
A thing that maketh the heart to cease and 

the limbs to fail. 
And the hands to grope for they know not 

what ; 
We would not find what he whispers of, and 

we die if we find it not ! 



82 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Chorus of Young Women. 
Ere our mothers gave us birth, 
Or in the morning of the earth 
The high gods walked with the daughters 

and found them fair, 
Ere ever the hills were piled or the seas were 

spread, 
His arm was over our necks, my sisters, his 

breath was under our hair ! 
Their spirits withered and died who then 
Found not the thing that his whisper said. 
But we are the living, the chosen of life, who 

found it and found it again. 
Where, walking secret in the flame. 
Unbearably the Titan came, 
Eros, Eros, yet we knew thee, 
Yet we saw and cried unto thee ! 
Where thy face amid exceeding day more 

excellently shone 
There our still hearts laughed upon thee, 

thou divine despaired-of one ! 
Though o'er and o'er our eyes and ears the 

heavy hair was wound. 
Yet we saw thee, yet we heard thy pinions 

beat! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 83 

Though our fore-arms hid our faces and our 

brows were on the ground. 
Yet, O Eros, we declare 
That with flutes and timbrels meet. 
Whirling garments, drunken feet, 
With tears and throes our souls arose and 

danced before thee there ! 
{They place the body in the hewn vault of the rock.\ 

Pyrrha. 
Go down now. I and tEoIus will watch 
Till dawn, when ye will come to shut the 

tomb 
And sing him to his peace. 

Lykophon. 

Some few with thee 
Will hold the watch, for safety. 

Pyrrha, 

None. Alone. 

(The others go down the path^ leaving Pyrrha and 

Molus seated by the tomb ; a girl lingers behind^ 

and when the last figure has disappeared^ throws 

herself at Pyrrha^ s feet.) 



84 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Rhodope. 

See, it is Rhodope, thy handmaiden ! 
Behold, thou knowest. He loved her. She 
would stay. 

Pyrrha (touching her head). 
Thy heart shall take no fear. O, stay with us ! 

{jThe voices of the young men are heard^ descending^ 

Chorus of Toung Men. 
When, to the king's unveiled eyes 
The rended deeps and the rended skies 
Seemed as a burning wood, — 
lacchos ! lacchos ! 
When flame took hold of the place of the 

dead. 
And burning seized on the throne of God, 
And birds and beasts and the souls of men 
As a wind of burning fled, — 
lacchos ! 

Yea, in the blinding radiance when 
The Bringer of Light by the altar stood, 
lacchos ! lacchos ! Evoe ! 
We saw thee, we knew thee, we cried upon 

thee! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 85 

We had lost thee and had thee again ! 

Plucker of the tragic fruit, 

Eater of the frantic root, 

Shaker of the cones of raving, sounder of 

the panic flute 
Over man and brute, 
lacchos ! 

Hunter in the burning wood, 
Planter of the mystic vine. 
From the spirit and the blood 
Crusher of the awful wine, 
lacchos ! Evoe ! lacchos ! 

(The voice dies away in the distance. Silence.^ 

Molus (whispers to Rhodope). 
See'st thou ? The cloud ! 

(^Touching Pyrrha.) 

Mother, What means the cloud ? 

Pyrrha (raising her head). 
How, child? 

The cloud. See how it lives within ! 



86 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. 

'T will rain ; he brought us back the blessed 

rain. 
And storm, and natural darkness, with the 

light. 

(^Bows her head again.^ 

As also to our hearts the shutting-in 
Of rain and natural darkness. 

Rhodope (looking up from Pyrrha's knees). 

All the hours 
Since long ago at dawn, the livelong hours 
Of glory, since he brought the morning 

back. 
The cloud has piled itself, and wondrous 

lights 
Have been thus restless in it. 

jEoIus. 

Where is he ? 

Pyrrha. 

I know not, child. It may be that he 
sleeps, 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 87 

Being weary ; or he wanders with his love 
To gaze upon the gladness of the world. 

Rhodope. 

No one has seen him since he fetched the 

light. 
They say of him — I heard the old men 

say — 

Pyrrha. 
The sun goes down : we will be silent now. 

(Silence. Molus and Rhodope., leaning together^ fall 
asleep. Pyrrha kneels by the tomb., with hands 
stretched aloft upon the king's breast.\ 

Pyrrha (speaks low). 

Thou whom my glad heart once deliber- 
ately 

Chose, and this morning suddenly with 
tears 

Chose, and was chosen, and was made thine 
at last 

In the destroying light — Deukalion, lord, 

The day is past, the evening cometh on. 

Once more to thy full-wishing lips I hold 



88 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

The chalice of my heart up, husband ! hus- 
band ! 
For night begins to pour her voices out, 
And thou art stayed for on the voiceless hills. 

(^She lifts her head and listens. In the distance Pan- 
dora's voice is heard^ sharp and agonized.^ 

Pyrrha. 
For thee too, then ! Even also for thee 
He smote the rock ; thy spirit thirsted too 
Afar there in the desert of thy joy. 
And came and drank against the morning 

ray 
Waters of trembling. By the pools in haste 
Thy soul stooped, plucking herb and flower 

of pain 
That groweth newly there, by the new 

stream ! 

Rhodope (runs with tEoIus, and crouches be- 
side Pyrrha). 

Pyrrha ! Mother Pyrrha ! Look, alas, 
Lo, how it comes upon us ! The bird ! 
The bird ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 89 

Pyrrha. 

What — where? How suddenly has dark- 
ness fallen, 

And now as suddenly 't is light again ! 

How terribly the lion thunder roared 

Leaping along the mountains to the sea ! 

— What saw ye ? What went by us in the 
wind? 

Rhodope. 

Look where the giant wings rock down the 
slope ! 

Pyrrha (gazing below). 
God's bird of wrath ! Swift is thy wrath, 

O God, 
Strong is thy jealousy J 

Rhodope. 

Awhile I slept ; 
Then as I looked and wondered at the 

cloud, 
The restless lights flushed angry, and all 

the west 
Shone stormy bright with ridges of blown fire. 



90 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

The cloud flamed like a peak of the fiery 

isles. 
Where in the western seas Hephasstos toils. 
Then from yon cloven valley in the midst 
Came forth the wings and shadow of the 

bird, 
And grew towards us vaster than storm, more 

swift 
Than I could cry upon him, and passed down. 
Once o'er the plain and o'er the ocean 

straits. 
And twice o'er the old olives by the stream 
Where the folk rest to-night, his shadow 

wheeled. 
And now he towers straight upward like a 

smoke. 
High, high, into the evening. 

{Pandora's cry is heard again ; she appears in the 
rocks above the tomh^ gazing upward. After a mo- 
ment she comes down and kneels beside Pyrrha^ 
hiding her face against the rocks. Pause ^ 

Pyrrha (in a low voice, gazing at the cloud). 

Deemest thou 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 91 

That he will yield himself unmurmuring 

up, 
Or will he make wild war along the peaks ? 

[Prometheus enters swiftly from below^ and raises 
Pandora. They stand clasped in each other's arms 
beside Pyrrha^ who^ still kneeling^ draws herself 
up to gaze into the king's face^ then clasps Molus 
with one arm and with the other the knees of Pro- 
metheus.) 

Pyrrha. 
Leave us not yet, before another dawn 
Comes, bringing surety ! For the giant dark. 
Seeing thee absent, may arise again, 
And Python lift unnameably his head 
In hell, hearing the gods hiss him awake. 

Prometheus. 
Be comforted ; it is established sure. 
Light shall arise from light, day follow day. 
Season meet season, with all lovely signs 
And portents of the year. These shall not 

fail ; 
From their appointed dance no star shall 

swerve. 



92 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Nor mar one accent of one whirling strophe 
Of that unfathomed chorus that they sing 
Within the porch and laughing house of 

Life, 
Which Time and Space and Change, bright 

caryatids. 
Do meanwhile pillar up. These shall not 

fail; 
But O, these were the least I brought you 

home ! 
The sun whose rising and whose going down 
Are joy and grief and wonder in the heart; 
The moon whose tides are passion, thought, 

and will ; 
The signs and portents of the spirit year, — 
For these, if you would keep them, you 

must strive 
Morning and night against the jealous gods 
With anger, and with laughter, and with 

love ; 
And no man hath them till he brings them 

down 
With love, and rage, and laughter from the 

heavens, — 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 93 

Himself the heavens, himself the scornful 

gods, 
The sun, the sun-thief, and the flaming reed 
That kindles new the beauty of the world. 

{He draws JEolus and Rhodope to him.) 
For you the moon stilly imagineth 
Her loiterings and her soft vicissitudes ; 
For you the Pleiades are seven, and one 
Wanders invisible because of you; 
For you the snake is burnished in the 

spring. 
The flower has plots touching its marriage 

time. 
The queen-bee from her wassailed lords 

soars high 
And high and high into the nuptial blue. 
Till only one heroic lover now 
Flies with her, and her royal wish is prone 
To the elected one, whose dizzy heart 
Presageth him of ecstasy and death. 
For you the sea has rivers in the midst. 
And fathomless abysses where it breeds 
Fantastic life ; and each its tiniest drop 
Flung from the fisher's oar-blade in the sun 



94 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Has rivers, abysses, and fantastic life. 
For your sakes it was spoken of the soul 
That it shall be a sea whereon the moon 
Has might, and the four winds shall walk 

upon it, — 
Also it has great rivers in the midst, 
Uncharted islands that no sailor sees, 
And fathomless abysses where it breeds 
Mysterious life ; yea, each its tiniest drop 
Flung from the fisher's oar-blade in the 

sun 
Has rivers, tempests, and eternal tides, 
Untouched-at isles, horizons never hailed. 
And fathomless abysses where it breeds 
Incredible life, without astonishment. 
(//(? bends over Deukalion.) 

O death, majestic mood ! Transfigured brow 
And eyes heavy with vision, since the time 
They saw creation sitting like a sphinx. 
Woman and lion, riddling of herself 
At twilight, in the place of parted souls — 
{^He pauses^ looks at the lighted cloudy and below at 

the darkening earthy where a mist is beginning to 

rise. J 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 95 

As far as being goes out past the stars 
Into unthinkable distance, and as far 
As being inward goes unthinkably, 
Traveling the atom to its fleeing core, 
Through world in world, heaven beneath 
wheeling heaven. 

Firmament under firmament, without end, 

To-day there is rejoicing, and the folk. 
Though ignorant, call us blessed in their 

hearts. 
Yea, He who is the Life of all this life. 
Death of this death and Riser from this 

death, 
Calleth us blessed in his heart of hearts ; 
And once again, in the dim end of things. 
When the sun sickens, and the heaven of 

heavens 
Flames as a frosty leaf unto the fall. 
In swoon and anguish shall his stormed 

heart 
Cry unto us; his cry is ringing there 
In the sun's core ! I heard it when I stood 
Where all things past and present and to 
come 



96 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Ray out in fiery patterns, fading, changing, 
Forevermore unfaded and unchanged. 

Behold, alas, mother, look up ! 

haste, let us be hidden in the rocks ! 

Pyrrha. 

The wings that were a little cloud in heaven 
Shed doom over the third part of the north ; 
And now he slants enormous down the west 
Toward his throne and eyrie in the cloud. 

(/« the background^ about the ark of Deukalion^ the 
figures of the Stone Aden and Earth Women emerge^ 
and stand darkly outlined against the sunset cloud. 
Prometheus speaks low to Pandora^ who falls at 
his feet. 'y 

Pandora. 

1 would be there with thee, love. O, not 

here ! 

Prometheus (stooping over her). 
There where I go thou art ; there, even 
now 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 97 

Thou cried'st me to thee, and I come, I 
come. 

{^He lays her in Pyrrha' s arms^ and disappears in 
the rocks ; he emerges on a higher level behind^ 
and turns westward^ 

{Pausing beside the ark.^ 

rude and dazed spirits ! Ye shall grope 
And wonder toward a knowledge and a grace 
That now we dream not of; then loneliness 
Shall flee away, and enmity no more 

Be spectral in the houses and the streets 
Where walk your primal hearts in the large 

light 
That floods the after-earth. 

(^He raises his arms over them.) 

Out of these stones 

1 build my rumoring city, based deep 
On elemental silence ; in this soil 

I plant my cool vine and my shady tree. 
Whose roots shall feed upon the central 

fire! 
(^He crosses a rocky stretch leading to the western 
heights over which the cloud rests^ and disappears 



98 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

in a mist -filled pass. Molus and Rhodope creep 
closer to Pyrrha and Pandora^ sheltering the?nselves 
from the chill of the rising mist, which slowly covers 
the scene. There is a long silence, broken by faint 
peals of thunder.^ 

Molus (whispers). 
Mother, the mist was gray and thick to 

breathe 
But now ; and now *t is thin, and flushes red 
As if all round the forests were aflame. 

Rhodope (whispers). 
Hush ! See'st thou not it is the mighty 

cloud. 
That flames more fiery when the thunder 

speaks ? 

(^Heavy thunder ; Pandora starts wildly up.'^ 

Pyrrha (drawing her down). 

Thou spirit bird, that sangest all night long 
And mad'st sweet utterance from the secret 

shade 
Where his wild heart spread coolness in the 

sun. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 99 

For thee to flit and sing, — O look not 

out ! 
Still hide thee in my breast ! 

(^Pandora sinks back. Pyrrha whispers to Rhodope.'y 
Rise thou, and look ! 

Rhodope (rises and speaks in a low voice). 
Over against the region where he went 
Thunder has torn the curtain of the mist, 
And out of moving darkness soars the 

cloud 
Like as a shadowed ruby, but above 
Like as an opal and a sardine stone 
Sun-touched to the panting heart ; and in 

the midst 
Are shapes throned on the moving of the 

lights, 
Who ride the wrathful lights, and are the 

lights. 
Up through the driving fringes of the mist 
Battle a living splendor and a gloom. 
O, while the shapes gather and wait at gaze. 
That pharos of our peril in the straits. 
That treader of the cups of gladness out 
L. of C.I 



loo THE FIRE-BRINGER 

In the sun's vineyard for us — Mother! 

Mother ! 
Look hither, look at last, for it is time. 
Up through the crud and substance of the 

cloud 
Prometheus wrestles with the bird of God ! 
(^Pyrrha rises, lifting Pandora.^ 

Molus. 
Look how the sudden wind has quenched 

the cloud, 
And them that were therein ; and how its 

blowing 
Shoulders the mist away from the keen 

stars 
That rushed out at the fading of the lights ! 
Look you, the cloud comes on us in the 

wind ! 
It tramples down the mountains, and above 
Reaches abroad in darkness, blotting out 
Place upon place of stars. 

Rhodope. 

The smoky air 



THE FIRE-BRINGER loi 

Climbs up and eddies round us and falls 

down, 
Rolling and spreading wider than the world ! 

(^As the cloud advances^ Pandora goes toward it with 
outstretched hands^ and pauses beside the prow of 
the ark^ among the Stone Men and Earth Women^ 
while deeper and deeper darkness drifts over the 
scene. The voices ofPyrrha and Pandora are heard 
as from the midst of the cloud. ^ 

Pyrrha. 
Vast sorrow, and the voice of broken souls ; 
A cry as of all kinds and generations, 
Times, places, and tongues ; or as a mother 
Heareth her unborn child crying for birth. 

Pandora (sings). 
A thousand aonSy nailed in pain 
On the blown world' s plunging prow ^ 
That seeks across the eternal main^ — 
Down whatever storms we drifts 
What disastrous headlands lift., 
Festal lips., triumphant brow., 
Light us with thy joy ., as now ! 



I02 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pyrrha. 
A sound of calling and of answering ; 
Answer or watch-cry of all desperate lives 
To God, and God to them calling or an- 
swering. 

{T'he Stone Men and Earth Women sing^ their voices 
growing fainter as they descend the valley behind^ 

'The Stone Men and Earth Women. 

We have heard the valleys groan 
With one voice and manifold ; 
Stone is crying unto stone^ 
Mould is whispering unto mould. 

'The Stone Men. 

Hear them whisper^ hear them call, 
" All for one, and one for all, 
Dig the well and raise the wall.'^ 

'The Earth Women. 

" For the nations to be born. 
Root away the bitter thorn. 
Reap and sow the golden corn.'' 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 103 

Rhodope (to Pyrrha). 

Hear'st thou this yet that thou didst whis- 
per of, 
Or is all silence now even to thee ? 
{Pyrrha does not answer. Pandora's voice is heard^ 
also from the valley behind^ but more distant.) 

Pandora (sings). 
/ stood within the heart of God ; 
It seemed a place that I had known : 
{I was blood-sister to the clody 
Blood-brother to the stone.) 

I found my love and labor there. 
My house, my raiment, meat and wine. 
My ancient rage, my old despair, — 
Tea, all things that were mine. 

Rhodope (to iEolus). 
Doth not the cloud go by us ? Yonder, 

see, 
A star looks dimly through. And there, 

and there 
'T is all awake with stars ! 



I04 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Pandora (sings). 
/ saw the spring and summer pass, 
The trees grow bare^ and winter come ; 
All was the same as once it was 
Upon my hills at home. 

Then suddenly in my own heart 
I felt God walk and gaze about ; 
He spoke ; His words seemed held apart 
With gladness and with doubt. 

*' Here is my meat and wine,' He said, 
" My love, my toil, my ancient care ; 

Here is my cloak, my book, my bed. 

And here my old despair. 

" Here are my seasons : winter, spring. 
Summer the same, and autumn spills 
The fruits I look for ; everything 
As on my heavenly hills. 

Rhodope. 

How swiftly now. 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 105 

As if it had a meaning in its haste. 
The cloud-bank fades and dwindles in the 
north ! 

{Starlight and silence. After a time^ dawn begins to 
break in the east. Pyrrha rises and kneels again 
by the tomb. As the light increases., Molus and 
Rhodope climb higher among the rocks and watch 
for the rising of the sun. Below., the voices of the 
young men are heard.) 

Chorus of Toung Men (ascending). 
One large last star, not yet persuaded well, 
Expected till the mountains should de- 
clare ; 
But from his hesitant attitude, 
From his wild and waiting mood. 
Wildly, waitingly there came 
Over sea and earth and air 
And on our bended hearts there fell 
Trembling and expectation of thy name, 
Apollo ! 

Now the East to the West has flung 
Sudden hands aloft, and sung 
Thy titles, and thy certain coming-on ; 



io6 THE FIRE-BRINGER 

Wheeling ever to the right hand, wheeling 

ever to the dawn, 
The South has danced before the North, 
And the text of her talking feet is the news 

of thy going forth, 
Apollo! Apollo! Apollo! 

When radiance hid the Titan's face 
And all was blind in the altar place, 
Then we knew thee, O we cried upon thee 

then, 
Apollo! Apollo! 
Past thee Dionysus swept. 
The wings of Eros stirred and slept. 
And we knew not the mist of thy song from 

the mist of the fire. 
As out of the core of the light thy lyre 

laughed and thundered again ! 

Eros, how sweet 
Is the cup of thy drunkenness ! 
Dionysus, how our feet 
Hasten to the burning cup 
Thou liftest up ! 



THE FIRE-BRINGER 107 

But O how sweetest and how most burning 
it is 

To drink of the wine of thy lightsome chal- 
ices, 

Apollo ! Apollo ! To-day 

We say we will follow thee and put all 
others away. 

For thou alone, O thou alone art he 

Who settest the prisoned spirit free. 

And sometimes leadest the rapt soul on 

Where never mortal thought has gone ; 

Till by the ultimate stream 

Of vision and of dream 

She stands 

With startled eyes and outstretched hands, 

Looking where other suns rise over other 
lands, 

And rends the lonely skies with her pro- 
phetic scream. 



Electrotyped a7id pri7ited by H. O. Houghton &" Co. 
Catnbridge, Mass., U.S.A. 



AR 2 6 1904 



